In the midst of the maelstrom revolving around pro athletes who have refused to get a COVID-19 vaccine, including the world’s number one ranked tennis player, Novak Djokovic, who was initially denied entry into Australia because he was unvaccinated, Boston Celtics center Enes Kanter Freedom said Wednesday, “You know, people should obviously vaccine yes, you know, save lives … but people should have freedom to choose if they want to get a vaccine.”
Freedom was speaking on The Will Cain Podcast when he mentioned a teammate chiding him for not supporting personal freedom after Freedom urged people to get vaccinated, as The Federalist reports. He recalled, “He basically like called me out. He’s like ‘listen, you just changed your last name. That is what you said on that interview is everything you’re against, everything you stand for.’ And I stopped for a second, I think I was like ‘you know what, you’re right.’ You know, people should obviously vaccine yes, you know, save lives … but people should have freedom to choose if they want to get a vaccine.”
“Players will not do a [booster] mandate, I believe,” he continued. “Because players are going to stand up and say ‘this is against freedom.’ I know some of my really close friends around the league, there’s no way you can make them do anything like that because that’s their body, that’s their choice. … I know some of the players like the one that I talked to, there’s no way you can make him do anything and that’s his body and you have to respect that.”
Freedom said that after he criticized NBA star Lebron James for his stance on Communist China, “One of the teammates of LeBron [James] came up to me and said, ‘keep doing what you’re doing. What you’re doing is right. Don’t give up.’ I was very shocked.”
In November, Freedom ripped James, accusing James of hypocrisy over his calls for social justice in the U.S. while defending China. He tweeted, “Money over Morals for the ‘King’ Crown. Sad & disgusting how these athletes pretend they care about social justice. They really do ‘shut up & dribble’ when Big Boss Flag of [China] says so. Did you educate yourself about the slave labor that made your shoes or is that not part of your research?”
Money over Morals for the “King” 👑
Sad & disgusting how these athletes pretend they care about social justice
They really do “shut up & dribble” when Big Boss 🇨🇳 says so
Did you educate yourself about the slave labor that made your shoes or is that not part of your research? pic.twitter.com/YUA8rGYeoZ
— Enes Kanter FREEDOM (@EnesFreedom) November 18, 2021
Prior to that, Freedom slammed Nike and James in a video, asserting, “Nike likes to say ‘Just Do It.’ Well, what are you doing about the slave labor that makes your shoes? That slave labor that makes you rich. To the owner of Nike — Phil Knight — I have a message for you. How about I book plane tickets for us, let’s fly to China together. We can try to visit these slave labor camps and you can see with your own eyes. LeBron James and Michael Jordan, you guys are welcome to come too. Nike must be a participant in this. Stop the hypocrisy. Stop the modern-day slavery now.”